A Fifteenth-Century Pottery and Tile Kiln at Leyhill, Latimer, Buckinghamshire
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A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY POTTERY AND TILE KILN AT LEYHILL, LATIMER, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MICHAEL FARLEY & JO LAWSON A single-flue pottery kiln built of tile and brick and constructed within a disused roof-tile kiln is described. The pottery kiln utilised structural features of the preceding tile kiln and there seems to have been little interval between the two episodes of use. Archaeomagnetic dates suggest a date in the late fifteenth century. The products of both kilns are described and parallels discussed. In May 1987 footings trenches being dug for a Buckinghamshire County Museum (Ace. No. new bungalow in the grounds of 1, Joiners 350.1987, CAS 5612). A copy of the archive Close, Leyhill, Latimer, cut through buried will be deposited in the NMR, Royal Commis• walls constructed of tile (NGR SP 98680222). sion on Historical Monuments (England). Marion Wells, who learnt of the find, kindly notified the County Museum after visiting and Historical Background realising the significance of the discovery. The The name 'Leyhill' loosely covers an area on first author then recorded features exposed at the western side of Leyhill Common, adjoining that stage, and subsequently, after the footings the hamlet of Botley. In the mid nineteenth had been placed, with the agreement of the century it contained a number of small farms owners, arranged for a small excavation in the with Cowcroft Wood lying to the south, app• following month to expose the remainder of roached by Tylers Hill. BQth tithe map and first the structure. This work was carried out with edition Ordnance Survey map (1893-7), indi• volunteers from Buckinghamshire County cate small scale extraction of sand and clay in Museum Archaeological Group. the area, with two working brickfields at Cow• croft Wood. One of these, worked by the The excavation exposed a pottery kiln set Dunton Brothers, was in production into the within a tile kiln, both apparently of late 1970s. Earlier production of tile is indicated by fifteenth-century date. The available resources the road name and by various occupational permitted examination only of the structure, references in the seventeenth century, such as along with part of the stoking area. It is likely those in the Chesham parish registers to that other structures may exist to the east of William Gurney referred to as 'of Tilers Hill' in the kiln, since small areas of subsidence were 1679 and as a tiler in 1691, and in a deed of reported in the garden. Examination of the 1714 relating to Tilers Hill to which one party bungalow footings trenches to the west how• was James Atkinson 'late of Botley, Tile ever, gave no hint that the site extended maker'. further in this direction. Discovery of the kiln in 1987 led to a report After examination, the kilns were re-buried. of an earlier find made c. 1953 when the sub• The finds and records have been deposited in floor arches of a kiln, built of tile, were dis- 35 Chesham Fig.. 1 Leyhill location Ley Hill Common 2 4 5 =:J6km I. 2 Ley I'll , locatiOn. o f excavatiOn. & of preVIOUS. discovenes------. m. the area F g. h covered at a house named 'Beverley' during of having been laid rather more loosely as the the building of an extension (Fig. 2, 1). face was rising. At the upper levels single lines of large flint nodules were placed behind the Research subsequent to the discovery of a laid tiles against the face of the cut. The walls post-medieval pottery dump and kiln in Ches• were very firmly built and evenly laid. Each tile ham, a little over two kilometres to the west rested almost directly on its fellow beneath (Cauvain 1979 and 1990), brought to light re• with only 2-3mm of clayey sand between onto ferences to potters in the Chesham registers, which it was bedded. All three principal walls including one Richard Fryar described as a were of one build. The dimensions of the tiles potter of 'Leyhill' in 1663/4. Direct evidence used in their construction were in the region of for pottery production in Leyhill itself, apart lOW (266mm) X 7" (165mm) X Vz" (14mm). from the discovery reported here, includes The natural, into which the kiln was cut, varied finds of wasters in 1966 and 1988, in the garden from pure yellow sand to sandy gravel with of the Swan, at the Old Stores, and by the occasional bands of yellowy clay. Crown (Fig. 2, 2) on the edge of the common. The material includes sherds from costrels and The bungalow footings trench cut diagonally pipkins probably of fifteenth - sixteenth-century through the western end of both kiln 1, and date (Chaffey & Wells 1989, with additional kiln 2 which was nested within it. During the comments). In the case of the discovery at the excavation, kiln 2 was intentionally not dis• Swan, Mr. Chris Barry who helped with the mantled, so the view of the western wall of kiln construction of an extension there some years previously, reported the discovery of 'an arch, 1 which had been provided by the footings very solid, built of flint, tile and brick'. He trench provided the clearest view of a kiln 1 noted, at the same location, 18" of dark soil wall uncluttered by later modification. The and 'pottery everywhere'. evenness of its construction was impressive (Fig. 4 & Plate II, left). There was no evidence of Finally the discovery in 1977 of a consider• rebuilding of any of the visible internal faces, able quantity of thirteenth to fourteenth• but the north and south faces were of course century sherds in back gardens, c. 150m to the substantially obscured by the presence of kiln west of the Joiners Close site reported here 2. (Fig. 2, 3), may hint at an earlier phase of the industry as yet unexplored. Down the centre of the kiln 1 ran a spine wall (Fig. 3, 108) which would have carried the inner springings of the atches of twin flues. The THE KILNS arches too were constructed from roof tile. The spine survived to a maximum height of 0.3m Kiln 1. The tile kiln and was keyed into the western wall (Figs. 4 The first kiln to be constructed, kiln 1, was and 5). At the base of the north and south walls rectangular, aligned roughly east-west, and were projecting angled ledges which would constructed entirely of peg-hole roof tile laid have received the ends of the missing flue fiat. A substantial part of it was below ground arches. These ledges formed an apparently level, its base being at a depth of 1.65m. It was continuous offset along much of the length of open fronted to the east with internal dimensions of 4.10m x 1.70m. the kiln, although they were only accessible in a few places. Direct evidence of the flue arches The tile walls were built directly against the was obtained a little over halfway along the kiln cut on the northern and western sides; on the at section R-T (Fig. 6 upper). Here, where the southern side, where there may have been a structure was not obscured by kiln 2- although slight construction trench collapse, there was still very difficult of access - the stubs of cross an evenly laid tile front but the tile filling be• walls were visible rising from the basal ledge hind was a little more erratic and showed signs on both north and south side. The northern 37 N \ x\-- -·-------- \ \ \ \ f \ z,/ ___ , \ I \ ~: I I 11211 F I \ :-. \ I \ \ I I \ I [1281 I I I I I \ A Course of builders' trench Areas w<thrn srte not fully excavated B&C Presumed course of destroyed krln \ walls Truefaceandcorner D or Krln211ue ·-:::_'--•;;'-- ', Estrmated rear extent of Klint \ E DPebblesurface Fig. 3 Plan of kiln 2 inside kiln 1 y s 107 Fig. 4 West wall of kiln 1 with stub of spine wall 38 N -------r-~1--=------"'---..------{ -=--.... -----..---------"'--"" --..--~s Topsotl and Subsoil ·.·.·.·.·.·.·.-W ·- s N vl ······················1\c="'==....c=-,-~ _:-;;j ~~=i ---' ~==J [ill] mi E, 11o61 Projected Hj\ \~;rojected ~~~ ::-:::i ~~~\ F Position of destroyed Kiln 2 arch 8 Pebble surface Yellow clay n Flint and tne <ubble \gga~ Tile fragments LJ I Fig. 5 Upper: section through kiln and 2 looking east. Lower: elevation of interior of kiln 2 looking east, showing flue arch and spine wall projected. 39 cross wall survived best (Fig. 6 lower, context the southern side of the spine wall and 131), to a height of approximately l.lOm above unacceptable demolition of the front wall of the floor level. At its base was the springing of kiln 2 would have been necessary to resolve the an arch (Fig. 6 · upper - context 153 issue. Whether the feature was a modification superimposed), whose apex would have risen to kiln 1 or part of the structure of kiln 2, there to about 0.5- 0.6m above the floor of the kiln. can have been only a short time interval The top of the cross wall, which would have between operation of the two kilns. been continuous across the kiln, was also in effect the 'floor' of the firing chamber. This Outside kiln 1, a little below ground level, height, mmrmum approximately l.lOm, there was slight evidence of a made pebble provided the only guide to the height of the path or yard running around its northern and chamber floor. southern sides. The eastern end of the kiln, from which it Kiln 2. The Pottery Kiln was fired, was the most damaged.